Breast cancer survivors are making an IMPACT

Wednesday

Dec 25, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 26, 2013 at 12:12 AM

In 1992, Vicki May, a nurse practitioner at DCH Regional Medical Center, noticed that women diagnosed with breast cancer often struggled to find adequate information and support. Hoping to meet their needs, May created the IMPACT program, an acronym for Identifying Many Positives After Cancer Treatment.

By Laura Monroe | Special to The Tuscaloosa News

In 1992, Vicki May, a nurse practitioner at DCH Regional Medical Center, noticed that women diagnosed with breast cancer often struggled to find adequate information and support.Hoping to meet their needs, May created the IMPACT program, an acronym for Identifying Many Positives After Cancer Treatment. She invited a small group of women to attend one meeting a week for six weeks, covering topics like dealing with the fears of cancer reoccurrence, managing the side effects of treatment and focusing on life after breast cancer.“After six weeks, we started over with new programs and new people joined in,” May said. “The old group served as support to the newcomers and it just grew from there.”IMPACT started as a support program for a group of seven women who met on their lunch break.Today, more than 30 women are active members. Many completed their treatment years ago, but still attend the meetings. They volunteer at the Lewis and Faye Manderson Cancer Center and reach out to women who have recently been diagnosed. They have participated in cancer walks and spoken at awareness events. Here are the stories of three women who say IMPACT has made a positive difference in their lives after their cancer diagnosis.

Doctors repeatedly told Vicki James that the lumps she found weren't cancer.The lumps were a symptom of fibrocystic breast disease and could be painful, but they weren't cancer. She had no reason to believe the lump she found in January 1999 would be anything different.James was scheduled for a biopsy, but wasn't nervous because she had undergone too many to count. After the biopsy, her doctor told her husband and children that she didn't have cancer. At 52 years old, James was told she would be fine, but everything changed a week later when she returned to have her stitches removed.“The doctor walked in and said, 'We looked a little further at this and you do have breast cancer. You need a modified radical mastectomy,'” James said. “He said that they would set it up for me up front and answer any questions that I had. My only question was, 'My God, how am I going to go home and tell my husband and my children?' They thought I was OK.”She said she felt blindsided because she wasn't prepared to tell her family.“At that moment, I guess my 'momma' mode kicked in over my 'fear' mode because my first thought was about how I was going to go home and tell my husband and my children,” she said. “I remember just sitting in that chair that afternoon because I couldn't make myself go back to work. I was just thinking about how I was going to do this to the people that loved me. That was my initial thought. The fear came later.”James rehearsed what she would say to her husband and she tried to stay calm, but when he walked in, the words poured out. His response in that moment is something she will never forget.“He got on his knees and just held me. I've never seen my husband cry, and he cried and said, 'God, why couldn't you please have let this be me?' That was just amazing.”After surgery, James was told that the cancer had spread into her lymph nodes and she would need to undergo further treatment. The words “lymph nodes” and “chemotherapy” almost sent her over the edge. The fears she had been avoiding began to creep in, but a woman from the IMPACT group visited James' hospital room and gave her the inspiration she needed to keep fighting. “I was sitting there preparing to die when this little lady, as white-headed as she could be, came bouncing into my room,” James said. “The only thing that I remember her saying was, 'I was where you are now 16 years ago.' Hearing her say she did this all those years ago was just a glimmer of hope when I didn't have any.”James joined IMPACT soon after. It quickly became a place where she could talk about the problems and fears she was facing. She knew the group of women in that room understood her and wouldn't judge her because they had faced the same experiences. They were willing to walk through those experiences again to help her.James is now cancer free, but remains involved with the organization that supplied her with so much encouragement. What was once a support group to her has become much more. James struggled to understand her purpose when a close friend who had been diagnosed with breast cancer six months before her died. However, through her involvement in IMPACT, she has found it.“She was such a good person, and I just could not figure out why God would take her and leave me,” she said. “So, all of these things I do are like God saying, 'This is why you are here.'”James will celebrate 15 years of being cancer free in January. Her doctors told her she had beaten the odds when she reached 10 years. For the first few years after her treatment, she worried about every little ache or pain because she feared the cancer would return, but she doesn't worry about it now.“I will honestly say from the bottom of my heart because of all the blessings, that even though I would have never wanted breast cancer and it sure wouldn't have been on my prayer list, I wouldn't give it back. I actually like the post-cancer Vicki better than I like the pre-cancer Vicki.”

Donna Anders didn't have a family history of breast cancer and didn't experience any indications or symptoms.One night in February 2002, she and her husband were reading in bed while one of their children was using a computer beside her and another was doing homework on the floor. The two were passing a telephone back and forth, and when one tossed it over Anders, it landed on her chest. As she reached to hand it back, she felt it.“I felt this tiny BB-sized dot on my chest. My doctor said that it was probably nothing, but he knew I would worry about it because I could feel it. He sent me to a surgeon, and the surgeon said that it didn't show signs of cancer, but sent me for a mammogram and an ultrasound, just in case. Both came back negative, but my doctor said we could go ahead and do a biopsy. He was just as shocked as I was.”The biopsy showed Anders had breast cancer. The family had planned a trip to Memphis and were to leave that afternoon after her appointment. While Anders faced a flood of emotions in the doctor's office, her children were at home waiting eagerly for their vacation to begin. The 48-year-old mother of three didn't want to ruin their excitement or their weekend getaway, so she kept her diagnosis a secret.“I just kind of hid it, I guess,” she said. “We had a great weekend together. Then on the way back, before we got out of the car, I told them. That is when I had to deal with it, and everything just came crashing in.”Her daughter had just won a dance competition, and her prize was a trip to New York and a trip to Paris. When Anders received her diagnosis, one of her first thoughts was that she wouldn't be able to make the trips to support her daughter. One negative thought led to another until a member of IMPACT came to visit her at home and helped her to think positively again.“She had just gotten back from an African safari,” Anders said. “I thought that if she could do that, I could surely sit on an airplane.” Encouraged, Anders and her family went to New York and to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. These were things she thought she couldn't do after her treatment, but was brave enough to try after hearing that someone else had been brave enough to do the same.“I would not have tried it otherwise,” she said. “I thought, 'I've got cancer and this will probably kill me.' But someone encouraged me and told me I could do it, and I did.”Attending IMPACT meetings helped Anders realize that her diagnosis was something she couldn't control. For the first time, she was forced to step back, slow down and take care of herself instead of others, but she didn't know how. Like many of the women, she was afraid to accept help when it was offered. Anders had always been the one who took care of everyone else.“One thing that somebody in the group said that made it click for me was that by refusing help, I was taking away their blessing,” she said. “After that, I looked at it a little differently. I realized it will help me and it will help them.”Being involved in IMPACT changed Anders. The group reminded her that she wasn't alone. She looked to the women who had survived their fight with breast cancer for encouragement, optimism and hope.“You can just live to get through the day, or you can live each day to the fullest, and I think IMPACT helps you do that,” Anders said. “It makes you see each day as a gift, and it changes some of your priorities. I'm a better person because of it.”It has been 11 years since her diagnosis, and Anders no longer has breast cancer. She still looks forward to IMPACT meetings every month and is even more involved now than before. She reaches out to women who have just been diagnosed and tells them about the benefits of joining the group.“There is still somebody out there that needs that hope, and I still feel that pull to help someone else,” she said. “IMPACT has helped me to see that there is a happy, healthy, joyful life after breast cancer. I'm still here and I want to continue that encouragement.”Before breast cancer and before IMPACT, Anders considered herself a perfectionist. Now she knows that everything doesn't have to be perfect, and that sometimes it's better if it's not. Anders has seven grandchildren and said, “I love every minute and every spilled glass of milk. Nothing rattles me like it used to and things really don't bother me now at all. I'm a different person, and I think I'm better for it.”

Members of IMPACT call Betty Booth their grand dame. At 82 years old, she is in her 19th year of surviving cancer, which is one of the longest of anyone in the group. She was one of the original members of the group and still remains active.“I like to give back and I feel like I should give back,” Booth said. “I feel like I can help someone else. A doctor can explain everything to you about the disease, but it helps to talk to someone who has lived through it.”Booth was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. She had been to her doctor for a regular checkup, and before she left, he told her to sign up for a mammogram. She told him she would call the next day, but knew in the back of her mind that she probably wouldn't. He made sure that she was scheduled for one the next week.“Knowing me like he did, he followed me out and had the nurse call right then,” she said. “I tell him every time I see him that he saved my life by making me go.”Booth wasn't worried when she went for her mammogram. When she got a call saying she would need to have a biopsy, she still didn't worry. On the day of her biopsy, the surgeon told her that if during the biopsy he saw that it was clearly cancer, he could perform surgery to remove the tumor and possibly the breast. Booth was convinced it wasn't cancer, but decided she would want to get it over with if it was.“When I woke up from surgery, I looked down and I was all wrapped up and I thought, 'OK, they did it,' ” Booth said. “At first, I think I was in a state of shock so that I didn't have the feelings that you would think I might have. I was sort of na´ve about it. As it progressed, I just accepted that that was the way it was.”Booth has learned that everyone's experience with breast cancer is different. She has met women who had similar experiences and women who felt completely different. She realizes now that no matter how strong someone thinks they are, they can always use support from those who truly understand from firsthand experience. “You're going to find yourself at some point needing support,” she said. “You might not know it now, but you will. That's what we will be there for. We can tell you our experiences, and we can help guide you through those bad days.“All of us who are still in IMPACT do it because we feel it's a calling. Once we have gotten through it, we feel like we need to be there for the new women. I hope I can stay involved in some way. It might not be the same way, but it will be some way.”

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